Exhaust vent placement for Workstations

I know this is an awkward question but why is it that most workstation laptops I find have exhaust vents placed on the left side? Dell and HP place all their workstaion vents on the left yet their consumer laptops all have rear vent placement. Is there a practical reason for this that I'm missing? I dont really like it when someone sitting next to me has a side vent blowing at my hand(when using a mouse). Just wanted to be in the know haha

 

It's even worse when you're left-handed AND using a mouse. I believe all vents should be placed at the back. Somehow, only Apple recognises this. There may be a greater proportion of left handed users using and/or designing Apple products.

 

The back portion is typically where the battery is. Plus sometimes the dock will block the vent if it is on the back.

 

The battery doesn't have to be at the back and the dock can be designed to not block the vents, so there are design workarounds, which clearly hasn't been addressed.

 

the dock! duh! i should've thought about that. genious!!! haha thanks!

Yes they should design docks that dont block rear vents, and I hope the next gen of docks have a built in pass through or something. But the main reason they dont now is because the majority of workstations share docks within a brand. This way a company can upgrade its base units without needing to repurchase new accessories. Until they phase in a new dock you wont see any change in vents (if that is the primary reason for side vents). (also makes sense because consumer docking stations and port replicators are generally connected via cables and thus can be placed away from a rear vent.

 

I don't think there is much incentive to move the vents. The only people compaining are left handed mouse users, which are far and few.